Disagreement of Latitudes.
Central America and Mexico from Chili to Guatulco, capturing
ships, towns and great treasures of gold, silver and plate, spread
ing a reign of terror in that whole region, reached at last the
port of Guatulco, a haven a short distance west of Tehuantepec.
At Guatulco * Drake, knowing that the whole power of Spain
was now aroused and on the qui vive in the South sea, and that
the return route by the straits of Magellan was too dangerous
and uncertain, both on account of difficult navigation and certain
attack from Spanish fleets, boldly resolved to return to England
by the Pacific ocean, the Moluccas and East Indies, and the cape
of Good Hope, a longer but a safer route. Leaving Guatulco
well loaded with plunder, Drake sailed northwestward instead
of westward, his true course, some 500 leagues in longitude, and
to June 3 1,400 leagues in all, "until we came into 420 north
latitude," - but Pretty says 430 of the pole arctic.
Although Fletcher and Pretty differ somewhat in their account,
both agree that the cold for them was intense, after their long
cruise in the tropics. Pretty says, " our men being pinched with
the same, complained of the extremity thereof," while Fletcher
pithily says, " they seemed to be in the frozen zone."
On June 5 our militant chaplain says: "
Wee were forced by
contrary windes to runne in with the shoare, and so cast anchor
in a bad bay."
Here the cold continuing and, as Fletcher calls
them, " vile, thick and stinking fogges prevailing," § they were
unable to remain, but were forced to go no farther north.
Curiously enough, at thispoint of his narrative Fletcher seems
to have had his mind or his memory much affected, probably
by the aforesaid " fogges," for in the next paragraph he gravely
tells that this bad bay was in the height (latitude) of 480 north,
not far from the entrance of Puget sound into the Pacific ocean.
So if Fletcher is correct in his statement as to the latitudes
gained, then from June 3 to June 5, 1579, Drake had sailed in
three days 6° of latitude, or over 400 miles, or, taking Pretty's
estimate of 50, some 350 miles; but when they concluded to leave
this locality and return southward, they followedthe coast, which
he says was reasonably plain, yet the hills were covered with
snow.
* World Encompassed, by Fletcher.
t Op. cit.
f Pretty's narrative or journal.
World Encompassed.
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